Located in Bloomsburg, Pensylvania you’ll find one of North America’s newest escape companies called Can U Xcape? It’s owned by three escape room enthusiasts who travelled the USA and eventually decided to try their hand at design and ownership. ERA’s friend and guest reviewer Rey had informed us about this company and insisted it become part of our trip through the region, so we not only took her advice, we also invited her to join us! Did the passion of these enthusiast-turned-owners present itself in our second room attempt while visiting them? Let’s find out.

The pre-room experience was very much like before. The outside of the building might make you a bit worried. The lobby will initially make you feel it’s just thrown together in a small space until you look around at the fun little details they’ve added (check out our other review on the Upside-Down Room for more about this)… The staff are also incredibly fun, interactive, and just all round great people that will bring a smile to your face.

The room quality here was incredible. Just like in the Upside-Down Room, the room has no untouched corners or spaces where you feel they tried to cut cost in design. Authentic and high quality props, solid set design, and again an abundance of detail that most designers don’t even consider. A solid experience in almost every way. The one thing lacking is additional rooms, but again, there are times when several rooms aren’t necessary when one or two rooms are designed as well as this one.

The immersion was great from the consistent set design, puzzles used in context, and a refreshing lack of ‘do not touch’ signs. Almost everything in this room invites you to look, touch and smell how authentic this steampunk airship is! A more engaging story experience and a better soundtrack would have made this experience even better, but we have no doubt most people will feel a strong sense of connection to the room’s theme.

The puzzle design was on par with some of the best escape rooms out there. A nice variety of fun, creative and team building puzzles/tasks were used. The semi-open puzzle path also allowed for everyone in our group to feel there were choices of puzzles they could be working on with no bottle-necks that disengaged others. The key here is finding the balance of difficulty vs. amount of puzzle engagement your group wants. Our group of three adults and one child made us wish we had one more brain and pair of hands to help. At the same time a group of 5-6 adults would easily enjoy the interaction and brainstorming they could do, but it would mean the occasional time where a couple people might need to stand back and passively watch somebody else complete a task. Again each group would need to decide what type of balance they want. One issue our group had was a challenging dexterity puzzle that required a fair amount of time to complete. The puzzle is fun and engaging for those who work on it, but it did eat a lot of time and precluded them from being involved in a number of other puzzles. We wished it was introduced a bit earlier in the scenario so that those working on it wouldn’t feel quite as removed from all the other things happening around them. All in all I’d have to say the puzzles were the most enjoyable part of this room, which is rare praise coming from this reviewer.

So was it fun? Definitely! We’d recommend this room ideally for any experience level player, but keep in mind, if this is your first escape room experience, you might be disappointed by most of the escape rooms you find after this because it’s just that impressive. Kids are welcome and might enjoy the cool immersion of the room but the puzzles will be a bit advanced for most children under the age of 13 we suspect… So if you find yourself travelling through Bloomsburg, Pensylvania make sure you stop in at Can U Xcape to check out this room.

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